


The Delilah Tree

by Honeymull



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2009 imported work, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 16:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17646434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honeymull/pseuds/Honeymull
Summary: 2009 - Prompt from [lj] Fall Fandom Free-for-all was:Sam/Dean. An untold fairytale. Lyrical, vibrant images. Either of the boys has to kiss something/someone/each other to get things back as they should be (or something equally as fairytal-ish).





	The Delilah Tree

_She waits in the cedar grove, sequestered and deep_

_She twines in the trunks and makes her home of bark and darkness. Coiled tight around the souls of the trees, she takes their strength for her own, endlessly draining, faithfully replenishing. She becomes the purifying fire for the soil._

_The grove grows strong, pulses with her presence, seeps into the minds of all close by, until, finally, the forest stands alone._

_She stands alone, her golden realm spread out in tableau before her._

*

 

Isolated in the tiny valley, the forest flourishes, surrounded by the steady hills. 

The sun is stronger here, blazing down in staunch ferocity as it watches the dell from on high. It prickles on the grass of the hills, turning the stalks brown, stiff and hot.

The grass further back, under the trees themselves, defies the heat, and glistens a scornful, vibrant green. 

Dean raises a silent eyebrow at the difference, glancing sidelong at Sam. 

Sam frowns, head tilted, then looks at Dean, nods. 

They take a straight path over the closest hill, packs slung over their shoulders and paces matching. An hour later, they take their first steps past the towering tree line.

 

It's verdant, rich in the colors of trees and sun. Hushed but for the breeze, no animals in the underbrush or birds trilling from the higher branches.

They feel like trespassers, more so than any other job, and they go silent, on edge, stalking through the trees like wolves to prey.

*

 

It's noon when they come upon it, high solstice-sun caught in its branches like the ragged fringes of a halo among the jutting spars. Huge, presiding like a god over the other trees, it dwarfs even Sam. Dean gears up for endless jokes when Sam's arms won't reach around the trunk, and Sam ignores him, pursing his lips and examining the Tree with single-minded intent.

Dean wanders. Sam studies. 

She senses their presence from deep inside her home, lights the bark in glimmers as she shivers her delight.

*

 

Sam sees the glow first. Streaming from the crevasses and spiraling the knots, it makes the dark wood gleam. Sam touches a twig bathed in the light carefully, lets out a surprised sound as it pulses under his skin. Dean turns around at the noise, several yards away.

Sam leans closer, and as he places his palm to the wood, the earth under his feet explodes up from beneath him, driving him against the tree, and the light thrums once with his heartbeat, then winks out as - 

The bark cracks open like unhinging jaws and Sam - Sam surprised, loses his balance. Tips, tilts, and time becomes less, seconds stretching to hours as - 

Dean shouts, muted and long in the sap-slowed seep of time, reaches out - 

fingers grasp, slide of a palm, knuckles caught and loosed - 

And Sam falls, darkness beyond the trunk opening as if a maw, swallowing Sam whole, bark snapping back together, steel-tough, before Dean can blink.

Dean yells, voice deep and desperate. Bare fists against the bark, he pulls-beats-begs, curses the unyielding wood as he leaves blood and skin caught in its rough snags.

Slumps to the ground as his rage drains out of him, and places a palm flat to the bark at the foot of the tree. 

*

 

Sam wakes in darkness, trickling dirt sweeping past his lashes, and he starts. Jerks futilely against earthy restraints, roots like shackles about his body. 

He struggles, mouth opening in pants, and the gloom lies heavy across his lips.

*

 

She shows herself to him that night, shows herself as a newly risen Eve, and speaks to him in whispers.

_Eat my fruit. Take it and eat._

Temptations swarm in front of Sam's eyes, tendril-thin scenes of everything he could have imagined, many he never could. 

He withstands her temptations, lies bound and helpless, thinks brother - and resists.

His thoughts become evergreen, and her enticements shrivel before him like leaves in winter.

*

 

Dean doesn't leave the forest. Moonlight drips in flecks across the leaves of the Tree, aligns in specks across the freckles on his face. He sleeps, curled into the underbrush, journal tucked into the jacket bunched under his head.

*

 

She courts him, her kingdom laid bare before his eyes. Treats him to the splendors of her realm, and rages as he shuts his eyes against her glory. 

He thinks again, _brother_ , closes his eyes and fights her for control of his thoughts. 

She pauses, turns her face from him as she gathers power from the forest.

*

 

This time, she shows him something different, reaching into his mind and dredging out deep-seated desire with her bare hands. They swirl in riot between her cupped palms, and she looks up at Sam. Smiles slowly, fierce and victorious, and spreads her hands wide, lets the scenes stretch like clinging cobwebs between her fingers, and Sam.

Sam is helpless to turn away.

She awakens the ache within him, finally.

*

 

Dean's pacing, ennui kept at bay by leafing through pages of notes in the journal. The leather feels soft with something he hasn't felt before, like it longs to take its place back in nature. Dean rolls his eyes at the thought, turns a page savagely, seeking for the thousandth time notes that aren't there.

He's loath to leave the forest, to leave Sam, but it's been days with no sign of his brother, and if he was worried before, he's just about frantic by now.

He turns, puts his back to the Tree, and takes a bracing breath.

The next second, the earth is rumbling mightily beneath his feet, and as he spins around, Sam staggers out, weak and dirty, from the darkness within the Tree into the light of the forest.

*

 

Lips thistle-stung and damp, Sam's eyes are huge, all pupil, and he fixes on Dean as soon as his feet touch the grass. Stumble-shaky, he walks up to and into Dean, pushes close as Dean's hands come up around his arms.

Whispers an apology, voice breaking, heart-breaking, leans up and swallows Dean's lips with his own.

*

 

Her surprised delight when Dean doesn't draw away is palpable in the sudden hiss of wind around the Tree, and her euphoria when he hesitantly sips the taste of cedar dust and ash from Sam's own tongue bleeds from her in streams on the breeze.

She'd never thought to look inside the other one's mind, as well. 

*

 

And it's good, so good, right and natural against all odds, but something...They can feel something, can feel her, as she feeds on the fulfillment of her temptation. They can feel...

_Her breath is chaos, her voice catastrophe, and she rises like a phoenix in her home with the rapture of fulfilled temptation in her hands._

Sam shivers, can feel her wrongness deep in his bones, hates the idea of her sharing this. He bites into Dean's lip, tiny teeth-furrows in the plumpness like biting into a plum, lush and sweet. Dean moans, pulls his head back and sees Sam's tongue behind his teeth roving over the edge of Dean's lip as he memorizes the feel.

When he lets go, Dean buries his face in Sam's neck, rides the tendon line gentle-soft with his teeth, and doesn't notice the muted roiling of the earth until Sam jolts under his hands.

*

 

The grass rises up, twining together in vines that creep up along Sam's legs, pull him away. Dean grasps Sam's shirt, tugs him back toward himself, mouth still pressed insistently against Sam's throat. Sam draws back, already off-balance from the crawlers bringing him back to his prison. Dean makes a small sound, helpless, and Sam shudders, moves back in to share Dean's breath. 

He sighs against his brother's lips, voice pale and hushed. _Burn it. Burn it down._

Dean jerks, small startled impulse, starts to shake his head. Sam flattens his palms against Dean's chest like he can press against the blood and muscle through the shirt, traces his lips with his own and memorizes the shape, the taste. Repeats, _Burn it. I'll be fine._

The grass becomes nettles, forces Dean's hands away, and yanks Sam backwards, a solid rope of the vegetation winding around his body up to his chest. Dean can't hold on, grabs frantically at Sam anyway, thorns ripping his flesh, but Sam is drawn back unyieldingly. He melts into the bark, and Dean is left outside, powerless, once again.

*

 

He comes back with gasoline and matches once night falls like a curtain over the forest. Circles the Tree with heavy oil, breath fluttering against the inky night breeze, circles it like the curve of a rosary and stands with arms outspread like crucifixion, open challenge as he watches the flames catch when he throws the matches.

The flames reach the Tree, and the curtain of night rips in two with a veritable eruption of light. It seeps from the Tree at the roots, creeps up from the grass, rushes outward at the base of the trunk, and in the branches, throws itself into the sky with wild abandon. The Tree welcomes the flames, and remains unburned.

Dean swallows, licks heat-dry lips and watches avidly, backed into a lesser cedar, breathes in smoke and smog without a thought as he waits for Sam.

*

 

_She's celebrating, whirling around her Tree in uninhibited glee, dark spins and dark steps, dancing as Sam sits bound, hard eyes over a small, grim smile._

_She feels the heat in the next moment, reeling toward Sam as she's wrenching upward without warning._

_Flames, unearthly yellow-white tongues of heat, lick in through untouched bark, and she shrieks as they sweep her up as they race to the heavens._

*

 

The fire rises like it's clay on a wheel, molded upward into the top branches of the Tree, leaving its light flickering into the bark below it, light without heat.

Dean paces forward, not without some trepidation, reaches a hand to the glittering wood.

He can _feel_ his heartbeat in his fingertips as they touch the Tree. 

In the next moment, his palm is pressed flat to the bark, blood pounding and ears straining. His is not the only heartbeat he can feel.

He can feel Sam's inhale, oxygen filling his own lungs as he matches his breath to his brother's.

The ground begins to shake.


End file.
